Everisto Mapedza

Community-based water law and water resource management reform in developing countries: rationale, contents and key messages

Water resources management reform in developing countries has tended to overlook community-based water laws, which govern self-help water development and management by large proportions, if not the majority, of citizens: rural, small-scale water users, including poor women and men. In an attempt to fill this gap, global experts on community-based water law and its interface with public sector intervention present a varied collection of empirical research findings in this volume. The present chapter introduces the rationale for the volume and its contents. It further identifies key messages emerging from the chapters on, first, the strengths and weaknesses of community-based water law and, second, the impact of water resources management reform on informal water users’ access to water and its beneficial uses. Impacts vary from outright weakening of community-based arrangements and poverty aggravation or missing significant opportunities to better water resource management and improved well-being, also among poor women and men. The latter interventions combine the strengths of community-based water law with the strengths of the public sector. Together, these messages contribute to a new vision on the role of the state in water resources management that better matches the needs and potentials of water users in the informal water economies in developing countries.

INSTITUTIONAL IMPLICATIONS OF GOVERNANCE OF LOCAL COMMON POOL RESOURCES ON LIVESTOCK WATER PRODUCTIVITY IN ETHIOPIA

SUMMARYImproving water productivity depends on how local communal water and grazing resources are governed.This involves institutional and organizational issues. In the mixed farming systems of the Amhara RegionalState, Ethiopia, non-participatory water users’ associations, neglect of traditional water rights, corruption,village power relations, inequitable allocation of irrigated land and free-grazing practice impact thegovernance of local common pool resources (CPR). Indigenous governance structures for CPR suchas the kire are participatory and effective in terms of rule enforcement. Externally initiated governancestructures lack acceptance by farmers and sufficient support from local government. In order to improvewater productivity in the mixed farming systems, institutional deficiencies need attention and existingindigenous governance structures require recognition and support. INTRODUCTION Livestock production potentially consumes much water (Hoekstra and Chapagain,2007) and threatens sustainable water use. Although the efficiency of livestockproduction in terms of water use depends on the agroecosystem in which the livestockare raised (Peden

The political ecologies of bright spots

In Bossio, Deborah; Geheb, Kim (Eds.). Conserving land, protecting water. Wallingford, UK: CABI; Colombo, Sri Lanka: International Water Management Institute (IWMI); Colombo, Sri Lanka: CGIAR Challenge Program on Water & FoodComprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture Series 6

Identifying opportunities to improve governance of aquatic agricultural systems through participatory action research

Challenges of governance often constitute critical obstacles to efforts to equitably improve livelihoods in social-ecological systems. Yet, just as often, these challenges go unspoken, or are viewed as fixed parts of the context, beyond the scope of influence of agricultural, development, or natural resource management initiatives. What does it take to get governance obstacles and opportunities out in the open, creating the space for constructive dialogue and collective action that can help to address them? We respond to this question by comparing experiences of participatory action research (PAR) in coastal and floodplain systems in four countries (Zambia, Solomon Islands, Bangladesh, and Cambodia) with a focus on understanding how to build more equitable governance arrangements. We found that governance improvement was often an implicit or secondary objective of initiatives that initially sought to address more technical natural resource or livelihood-related development challenges. We argue that using PAR principles of ownership, equity, shared analysis, and feedback built trust and helped to identify and act upon opportunities to address more difficult-to-shift dimensions of governance particularly in terms of stakeholder representation, distribution of authority, and accountability. Our findings suggest that the engaged and embedded approach of researcher-facilitators can help move from identifying opportunities for governance change to supporting stakeholders as they build more equitable governance arrangements.

Joint ventures in the Flag Boshielo Irrigation Scheme, South Africa: a history of smallholders, states and business

The report analyzes the changing tripartite constellations between South African black smallholders, the pre- and post-apartheid state, and the country’s large-scale agribusiness and irrigation industry. A recent mode of farming is the ‘joint venture’, in which smallholders hand over land and share in the net profits, while a strategic partner manages the cultivation with own inputs and equipment, and markets the output. With a focus on the 13 sub-schemes of the Flag Boshielo irrigation scheme in the former homeland of Lebowa (current Limpopo Province), the report analyzes the emergence of six joint ventures - the collapse of three and the troubled continuation of the other three. For the government’s support to joint ventures as one of the options of the revitalization of smallholder irrigation schemes in former homelands, it is recommended to ensure there is a robust bilateral contract between smallholders and the strategic partner, to strengthen land tenure arrangements, and to diversify irrigation technologies for women and men smallholders.

Free-market economics and developmental statism as political paradigms: implications for water governance theory and practice in developing countries

Key actors in various developing countries are often confronted by difficult choices when it comes to the selection and deployment of appropriate water governance regimes taking into account national socio-economic and political realities. Indeed, scholars and practitioners alike continue to grapple with the need to create the optimum water-supply and allocation decision-making space applicable to specific developing countries. This chapter uses case studies to explore the utility of free-market economics and developmental statism as two major paradigms that have emerged in the face of enduring questions about how best to govern water-supply systems in developing countries. The chapter establishes that increasing pressure on available natural resources may have already rendered obsolete some of the water-supply systems and governance regimes that have served human societies very well for many decades. It is also clear that national water-supply governance paradigms tend to change in tandem with emerging national development theoretical frameworks and priorities. Each nation or local government feels compelled to adopt a particular framework to fulfil its needs taking into account the broader global water policy context. While many developing countries have adopted water policy prescriptions from the international arena, national and local socio-economic and political realities ultimately determine what works and what does not work on the ground. Local realities have also helped to inform how nation-states domesticate global concepts for their local purposes. Thus, the choice between free-market approaches and developmental state-oriented approaches is never simple, and hybrid models are often deployed. Indeed, the majority of countries and municipalities rely on a mix of market economics and developmental statism to make their water governance regimes more realistic and workable on the ground.

Path Dependence in Nebo Plateau: Strategic Partnerships and Rural Poverty Alleviation in South African Small-Scale Irrigation Schemes

To address the challenges associated with under-utilised smallholder irrigation schemes located in former homeland areas in South Africa, strategic partnerships between black farmers and white, established commercial farmers have been implemented by the Limpopo Provincial Department of Agriculture since the 2000s. This article aims to explain the adoption, and then the resilience over time, of this policy instrument, despite its failure to meet its objectives. We first demonstrate that policy instruments rarely result from an objective assessment of the situation at stake, and more often simply recycle previously used policies that were designed in attempts to provide solutions to other scenarios, which may not reflect the same characteristics as the situation currently under investigation. We then argue that the resilience of the particular policy instrument called ‘strategic partnership’ has been ensured thanks to a mechanism of ‘path dependence’ that is derived from previous policy decisions. Indeed, we demonstrate how the legacy of these earlier, primary policy choices makes it difficult to re-evaluate policy decisions favourable to strategic partnerships. Building on neo-institutionalist theories (sociological, historical and rational) that emphasise continuity within public policies, it will be made clear how strategic partnerships ultimately imposed themselves as a foregone policy ‘choice’, despite their disappointing results.

Managing water commons: a new look at changing systems: Introduction to the special section

The problem of governing commons forms a major theme in the practice and scholarship of many natural resource sectors, including forestry, rangeland and fisheries. As is now well understood, common pool resources differ from private resources in the difficulty of excluding new users and differ from public goods in their consumption rivalry (consumption or use by one detracts from use by another). Difficulty of exclusion and rivalry in consumption can result in classic resource degradation and over-exploitation; this was described by Hardin as “the tragedy of the commons”. While privatization and state control were once advocated as the only solutions to this tragedy, we now know through the work of Ostrom and others that many common pool resources have been governed by common property regimes in which users themselves developed successful management systems to control both exclusion and use. The study of common property systems has developed into a major academic field with significant policy insights and influence. This field has its main institutional representation in the International Association for the Study of Commons. In 2011, the association held its bi-annual meeting in Hyderabad, India. The meeting and presentations covered a wide range of ‘traditional’ commons resources such as those mentioned above as well as newer forms including data and genetic material and emerging issues related to globalization. The meeting also included multiple papers related to the subject of water, including a special session focused on agricultural water and the commons. Analysis of water commons is of course not new, and some of the most important insights on common property resources have emerged from the water sector (e.g. Agrawal, 2001; Cleaver, 2000; Dietz, Ostrom, & Stern, 2003; Ostrom, Burger, Field, Norgaard, & Policansky, 1999; Wade, 1986). However, interest in water commons seems to have declined over the past decade despite the fact that many of our pressing water problems, including groundwater overdraft, are essentially commons problems and in spite of continued investments by international donors and governments to create common property water management regimes such as water user associations (WUAs). The presentations at the conference suggested that the issue of water commons deserved revisiting, both for the reasons just mentioned and because the conditions that underpinned past analyses of water commons are changing. This special section brings together several articles inspired by the 2011 meeting to present recent findings related to water commons around the world.

Livestock-Water Productivity in the Nile Basin: Solutions for Emerging Challenges

The competition for water between different uses and users is increasing, particularly in the Nile basin where about 90% of the production systems comprise livestock. There is an ongoing debate on how to increase water productivity in these crop-livestock systems. This paper presents a comprehensive framework to provide policy guidance and promote action to improve returns from water investments through: (i) provision of sufficient watering points for livestock across the basin; (ii) improving water productivity through promoting water-saving technologies, ensuring system integration and control of transboundary flux of livestock diseases; and (iii) formulating participatory basin scale regulatory frameworks on water use and sharing. It also argues that improving water productivity through integrated technological, policy and institutional interventions offers an opportunity for smallholders in both upstream and downstream countries to adapt to climate and market risks.